Just Cause 3 vs. Crackdown 3: Battle of the Destructible Environments

Crackdown 3 made its official debut in a new trailer during Gamescom, dubbed “the ultimate sandbox”with impressive gimmicks such as transforming vehicles and a “100% destructible” game world both in single player and multiplayer. Is destructible everything enough to make this the ultimate sandbox experience players have been waiting for?

The trailer for Crackdown 3 highlighted the fact that the game will be utilizing Microsoft’s cloud computing feature, apparently leveraging processing power twenty times more than the capacity of an independent Xbox One console. Given that more power brings more destruction to the palm of your hands, could this put Just Cause 3 in an awkward position? If Crackdown 3 is going to utilize Microsoft’s cloud computing feature to boost power to the system how will Just Cause 3 the leading competitor for “ultimate destructible sandbox experience” be affected? Just Cause 3 looked huge with its countless ways to destroy things during Gamescom and it still looks great, but after Crackdown 3’s First Look trailer, it might seem as if Just Cause has been blow out of its own waters.

Just Cause 3 is a lot more innovative with the way it provides players with how they are able to approach the way they destroy its various environments compared to Crackdown which is going toward a more traditional route of run, jump, shoot, explode style, whereas Just Cause is going down the Run, Jump, Para shoot, ride-exploding tanks, grapple and wing suit style. The two games are entirely different from one another while also mirroring themselves. Just Cause 3 is about a man who discovers his city is under the brutal control of a dictator and the only way to stop him is to destroy his criminal enterprise while Crackdown 3 is about a cop who discovers his city is under brutal control of gangs and the only way to stop them is to destroy their criminal enterprises.

It seems as though Crackdown and Just Cause decided to return to consoles around the same time as the other, but both of them will be carrying different hardware into battle. Just Cause is going to be breathing chaos into both the PS4 and Xbox One while Crackdown will be an Xbox One exclusive. It isn’t known if Just Cause will take advantage of Microsoft’s cloud computing feature at all, but if it does it will probably be a completely different experience between the two consoles. Unless Microsoft is waiting to surprise its fans with the announcement closer to the games release, it’s a sure bet that the game will not be taking advantage of any higher processing powers via Cloud computing.

The two games both have their positives and negatives; Just Cause gives more freedom to destruction encouraging players to get creative in the amidst of chaos, while Crackdown 3 delivers more overall destruction with more mindless explosions than creative ones. Nevertheless, players will be getting their fill of open world destruction in 2016.